| |
Sigmatek XM-380 Pro FAQ
Overviews
Where can you buy the Sigmatek XM-380?
What are specification of the Sigmatek XM-380?
Technical questions - Firmware / Region Free / Support / Burning / Remote Control
How to upgrade firmware?
How to change zone (region free)?
How to burn correctly my CD/DVD?
Are DVD+R9 (DL = Double Layer) supported?
Technical questions - USB connection
What do I need to do to read files from USB?
Filenames shown thru USB are really short, normal?
Which transfer speed USB port is using?
Technical questions - File playing (DivX, MP3, JPEG, MPEG, etc...)
How to read subtitles (SRT, SUB, SMI) with my AVI files?
Does the player can read Nero Digital files?
Does the player can read OGG and OGM files?
Does the player can read DivX 6 files?
How to call the GOTO function?
Technical questions - Audio and video
How to enable the YPbPr output?
Known problems
My XviD files can't be read correctly with jerks and pixels!
I can't see my ".divx" files and play them
I can't read subtitles using USB disk?!
Subtitles does not display special character in some European language!
Time counter is always displayed when launching AVI!
Overviews
| Where can you buy the Sigmatek XM-380? |
|
| Outside France, Sigmatek players can be main buyed in Europe from Pixmania (see on DivX-Compare if there is a link to) or Acomp for Czech people. |
[ Back to top ]
|
Technical questions - Firmware / Region Free / Support / Burning / Remote Control
| How to change zone (region free)? |
|
| XM-380 is already multizone so you do not need to apply any modification to read DVD from others zones. But if you find the code to display hidden menu allowing to change the zone, then please advice everybody in the forum. |
[ Back to top ]
|
| How to burn correctly my CD/DVD? |
|
You have to check these options (all burning software should have these options):
• No multession
• Filename width: ISO Level 2 (35 characters) - XM-400 will display only 14 characters max
• Format: Mode 1
• Character set: ISO 9660
• Action: Finalize support
• Write speed: Do not select the maximum speed if you can (by precaution)
• Write method: Disk-At Once
• Option: "verify written data" (available when burning is launched)
The check allows to be sure to have no problems later.
Please note if you use "low quality" supports, you can have problem when reading.
In this case, you can try to use (info by sylv11) "RecordNow Max", a Nero competitor in the world of burning. You can test it if you have any problem.
You need to pay attention to the write speed.
More the speed is high, more you're going to have reading problem, write errors and the longevity will be reduced.
A good average is between x8 and x16. This is applicable to all supports.
And try to use and burn "quickly" (quickly means to burn them without waiting 1 year after buying them) your supports, the quality degrades in time of non-use. Thanks at Wolf83 for those remarks. |
[ Back to top ]
|
| Are DVD+R9 (DL = Double Layer) supported? |
|
Yes, it seems to, it will be necessary to test more, but a test has been made with a copy of the DVD #1 of "The Return of the King" (long version). Copied on DVD+R DL Verbatim Datalife Plus (Mitsubishi Kagaku Media) 2.4x, burned at 4x with Nero 6.6.0.3. Tracks have been ripped with DVDShrink without compression, keeping all items (menus, etc.) ... 7,45 Gb burned.
Result: no problem, the DVD is well recognized and played up to the end. |
[ Back to top ]
|
Technical questions - USB connection
| What do I need to do to read files from USB? |
|
All disks or USB keys could not be compatible with XM-380 Pro thru USB.
But you can your several things before capitulate:
- a disk must have only main partition
- the partition must be formated in FAT32 (not in NTFS or something else)
- the partition must be a "primary" one and not a "logical" one (check this when partition is created from Partition Magic 8 for example)
- a harddisk must be powered externaly to make it work, the USB port is not enough
Other users feed-back:
- sometimes naming the volume as "FAT32" is better
- you have to wait several minutes to get the file appear on menu
To format the disk using FAT32, you have several solutions:
- under Windows XP you can, but you are limited to 32 Go (not with Windows 98)
- with Partition Magic 8, some users achieve to format it correctly
- using a boot disk with FDisk + Format
- with MaxBlast for Maxtor disks
- with DiskWizard for Seagate disks |
[ Back to top ]
|
| Filenames shown thru USB are really short, normal? |
|
Yes it's "normal". It's not possible at this time to display longer filenames, only 8.3 format is used.
Using CD or DVD, same files will be displayed with 12 characters, it's not a lot neither, but with unofficial firmwares you can show more (around 50 characters) for filenames, but not thru USB, only from CD/DVD. |
[ Back to top ]
|
| Which transfer speed USB port is using? |
|
USB port is using 1.1 protocol version, so the maximum speed is 12 Mbps.
This implies you can get long recognition of all your files on the disk using USB and sometimes you can get jerks when reading AVI files if the bitrate reach around 1000 kbps. |
[ Back to top ]
|
Technical questions - File playing (DivX, MP3, JPEG, MPEG, etc...)
| How to read subtitles (SRT, SUB, SMI) with my AVI files? |
|
The subtitle filenames in format SRT, SUB (text), SUB/IDX (picture), SMI (multilingual), to be recognized, must have the same name as its associated AVI file.
Example: "mymovie.avi" and "mymovie.srt"
The subtitles files with a filename greater than 50 characters can't be read, but with the "cocute v.2.6" unofficial firmware it will work.
Attention, using external external disk thru USB, all subtitles files can't be read!
You can workaround this problem adding subtitles directly in the movie, you can do it transforming the subtitle file in XSUB and creating a DIVX 6 file. |
[ Back to top ]
|
| Does the player can read Nero Digital files? |
|
No this codec is not supported by the XM-380 embedding a Mediatek 1389FE chipset.
And no firmware will be released to add this functionnality. |
[ Back to top ]
|
| Does the player can read OGG and OGM files? |
|
| No, this player is not compatible with OGG codec and can't read OGM files container. |
[ Back to top ]
|
| Does the player can read DivX 6 files? |
|
Yes it's possible to read ".divx" files, new container created this DivX 6 codec.
The elements read are: XSUB subtitles formats (several) and all audio streams. Chapters, menus and tags can't be read. |
[ Back to top ]
|
| How to call the GOTO function? |
|
| You just have to press 2 times the "SEARCH" button under the remote control lid and enter the time you want to go to. |
[ Back to top ]
|
Technical questions - Audio and video
| How to enable the YPbPr output? |
|
Yes it's possible using a kind of workaround not user friendly.
The only way to activate YUV output is to:
- open then drawer
- open the lid of the remote control
- press the IP/PS button to switch between the 3 available video mode (RVB / YUV / YPbPr)
If you want to have the best quality using YUV output then disconnect all other video cable by leaving only the YUV one.
Thanks to Dagoon666 for feedback! |
[ Back to top ]
|
Known problems
| My XviD files can't be read correctly with jerks and pixels! |
|
The XM-380 does not support the option "Packed Bitstream" in XviD files (called too "NVOP"). When activated, this option provok jerks and random pixels on TV. you can check if this option is activated using the last GSPOT application. At top right, if the field "NVOP" is green, then the option is activated.
Fortunatly you can solve this problem without reencoding the file, using the MPEG4Modifier software from Moitah.
Download it from there and follow the small guide:
• Open the AVI file to process
• Check the box "Packeted Bitstream Unpack"
• In the field "UserData" select the line "xxxxxxx00p"
• Edit and replace the "p" character by a "n" one
• Save the AVI file using a new filename
• Burn it and enjoy it ... no more jerks!
Thanks to Dagon666 for this Quick Guide ! |
[ Back to top ]
|
| I can't see my ".divx" files and play them |
|
Files with extension ".divx" can be seen only when they are burned on CD or DVD, not on an external HDD/USB key when using USB.
So you have to rename the file extention to ".AVI" to make them visible and playable. |
[ Back to top ]
|
| Subtitles does not display special character in some European language! |
|
The default charset used does not contain the good french or other europeans languages using specials characters.
Fortunatly, thanks to Cocute and MTZ, unofficial firmwares have been created to allow different charset to be used (1250 and 1252 especially). You can choose unofficial firmwares from here.
And big thanks to MTZ and Cocute for their work!
Note:
- 1252 : English, Albanian, Danish, Dutch, Faroese, Finnish, French, German, Icelandic, Irish, Italian, Norwegian, Portuguese, Spanish and Swedish
- 1250 : English, Croat, Czech, Hungarian, Polish, Romanian, Slovak, Slovene and Serbian |
[ Back to top ]
|
| Time counter is always displayed when launching AVI! |
|
If you did not have yet installed the unofficial firmware fixing this problem, you have to press the "DISPLAY" button (under the lid, at bottom right), to make it disappear.
If you want to upgrade your player go to the firmware page. |
[ Back to top ]
|
|
